The UK box office crossed the 1bn mark for the second year in a row, after totalling $1.682bn (£1.077m) in 2010.

The tally is a marginal increase on 2009’s $1.661bn (£1.064m), but perhaps not as significant a rise as expected after the high revenues generated by major 3D titles.

With four of the top ten grossing titles of 2010, Warner Bros. was comfortably the best performing distributor in the UK.

Warner Bros. claimed 18.79% of the market after releasing 31 titles during the calendar year, for a cumulative total of $316m (£202.4m).

The studio’s hits Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows ($76m - £48.7m), Inception ($55.9m - £35.8m), Sex And The City 2 ($33.9m - £21.7m) and Clash Of The Titans ($31.5m - £20.2) all made it into the top ten UK performers for the year.

Less than 1% separated the second and fourth best-performing distributors, with Fox International claiming the second largest piece of the pie on 15.09% from 26 films. $109.3m (£70m) of Fox’s $253.6m (£162.5m) total came from 3D phenom Avatar.

Third-placed Paramount International took 14.64%. Disney had 14.21%, largely off the back of the year’s highest grosser Toy Story 3, which made $115.2m (£73.8m). Disney released the fewest number of titles among the six major studios - 18.

Universal accounted for 10.56% and sixth-placed Sony had market share of 7.07%.

eOne was the best-performing of the non-studio outfits managing 5.48% ($92.1m - £59m) from 17 titles (including Twilight Saga: Eclipse). Optimum releasing came in tenth, grossing $35.9m (£23m) from a year-high 36 releases, while Vertigo saw impressive returns on its eight releases, almost entirely thanks to the year’s top UK title, StreetDance 3D, which grossed $18.1m (£11.6m).

Warner’s UK-US production Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows was the highest earner among films with UK involvement, while StreetDance 3D was the only fully British title among the top 50 grossers in the UK. Vertigo’s hit placed 18th.  

Paramount’s Made In Dagenham was the second-highest-grossing entirely UK production in 2010, grossing $5.8m (£3.7m), with Four Lions ($4.5m - £2.9m), Tamara Drewe ($4.1m - £2.6m), St Trinian’s 2 ($3.4m - 2.2m) and Another Year ($2.5m - £1.6m) also featuring among the top ten local hits.

Predictably, the lack of high-earning local productions was in contrast to other major European territories. 17 local titles featured among France’s top 50 grossers,15 home grown productions were among the top 50 in Italy and six made it in Germany.

To date six titles released in 2010 have claimed places in the UK’s all-time top 50 chart – Toy Story 3, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Alice In Wonderland, Inception, Shrek Forever After and Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

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